Dead King's Sword (Old Draft)

5. Fortune Telling and Future Kisses

Erin

***

A rolled piece of paper hit the spot between my shoulder blades. I ignored it, only to feel another ball hit my lower back a few seconds later. My grip tightened around the pencil. At the front of the room, the Fortune's professor wrote on a chalkboard. The chalk moved on its own, only changing direction when he twitched one of his fingers.

Oh, how I missed having magic.

Writing without it gave my hand a terrible cramp.

Professor Kudrow was an ancient man with long white hair held in a golden clasp and dim brown eyes. His skin was as pale as snow. Despite being over a hundred, his face was still young with a slight rosiness about his cheeks. He was handsome; a handful of the girls in our class drooled while they watched him. A paper ball hit the back of my head. Unable to bear it a second longer, I turned around. "Will you stop?"

A few rows behind me, Zeren placed a hand on her chest; confusion crossed her pretty face. She looked left and right, then said, "I didn't do it."

"Then who did?"

She waited until the teacher turned his back and then stuck out her tongue.

Mr. Kudrow said, "Ladies, will you focus on the lesson, please?"

Zeren said, "I'm sorry, sir. I don't know what got into her."

"I saw you toss balls of paper at her, Ms. Mandel. Do it again, and I'll see you in detention."

As Kudrow's back was still to the class, I showed Zeren my middle finger.

Zeren returned the gesture.

Mr. Kudrow said, "Ladies, manners, please, or I'll see you both in detention. Now, if we would all turn to page eleven... 'How to infuse a crystal ball with Dragon breath?'" On his desk was a stoppered test tube with white smoke and a crystal ball. He tapped the crystal ball twice, and a hole appeared in the top. "The next part requires speed and precision. If you move too slow, the breath will escape, and you won't get a clear image. You want to get as much of it inside as you can." He removed the stopper and covered the mouth of the glass tube with his thumb till he came to the opening of the crystal ball, then he pushed the neck of the tube inside. The smoked filled the ball, obscuring our view of the glass. When he was done, he tapped twice, and the crystal ball closed. He held it in front of him. "Page one seventy-three tells you how to do your first reading. Who wants to volunteer?" He raised his head. "How about... Erin Williams?"

I wasn't sure if I wanted a personal reading performed in front of the whole class, but I also hated when teachers asked a question, and the students rewarded them with the dreaded ocean of silence. Sadness would fill the teacher's once hopeful eyes, and they started to doubt their teaching skills. I smiled at him. "Okay, I don't mind doing it."

"Put your hand on top. That's good." I felt the envious glares of girls who wished he had picked them as invisible needles stabbing my skin. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, the clouds began to move and twist into different shapes. There was a boy or a girl with short hair and another with long hair kissing. I grimaced as my classmates whispered; Mr. Kudrow silenced them with a hush. The image changed. The short-haired person plucked a sword from a rock, then they were swallowed by clouds. The clouds converged to form some demonic face that sent a chill down my spine before smoke filled the glass once more.

Mr. Kudrow frowned. "Of course, my interpretation may be different from yours, but in the most general sense, the images tell me that you will face three trials. In the first, the person you love will fall for someone else. In the second, that same person will pull a sword from a rock, though as to why that would be a trial for you, I cannot say. And the third, it seems like there might be some demonic encounter not too far in your future."

My face warmed as my classmates discussed my reading. Now I wondered what Zeren's reading would be.

Mr. Kudrow smiled. "Our fears tend to influence our future, and while I understand that last night's incident might have been scary for some of you, the castle is safe, I assure you. We have remedied the situation, increased guards and patrols— no more murders will occur, I promise. We have placed sensors everywhere and will be readily alerted if anyone attempts to do a spell of that scale again."

Kudrow held the crystal ball above his head. "Sometimes, these things are faulty. They can be heavily influenced by your fears and yield inaccurate predictions, so I have learned to take them with a healthy dose of skepticism. But, on the rarest of occasions, they come true. Either way, you'll have fun doing it, and it'll bring you closer to your classmates. So, I want you to perform five crystal ball readings and place a report detailing your findings on my desk by Friday."

A chorus of groans filled the classroom as he called us to the front to collect a crystal ball and dragon's breath row by row.

***

At lunch, I found Zeren at a table by herself, eating cereal. A mountain of chocolate puffs proudly jutted out of a pool of brownish milk. She looked content as she spooned one bite into her mouth then another. I sat across from her. "Are you going to try out for flyball this year?"

"I don't know. You?"

"I was thinking of stopping by, making friends."

She nodded. "Would be hard without magic," she murmured distractedly. Usually, she would say something dumb within a few minutes of meeting me, but today she was withdrawn. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah. Just thinking."

"About?"

"Stuff." She shrugged.

Her nonchalance irritated me more than her jeers. "Isn't it like your mission in life to annoy me? Why don't you follow me to tryouts and give me hell like usual?"

"Do you want me to?" She smiled.

My heart slammed into my chest, and my ears warmed. "No, I'm just trying to figure out why you're acting aloof all of a sudden."

"I have plans after school."

"To do what?"

"It's a secret."

***